one night in beijing

some of these pics i am merely posting up bc i'm fairly sure my computer will crash once again and i will lose photos again

Taipei 101

Taipei as viewed from Taipei 101 at dusk

one night in shanghai

One crazy night out in Shanghai with my friend Henry

大同

The initial bus ride from Beijing to Datong, Shanxi Province was foreshadowing of what was to come. We made an epic pass outside of Beijing through the mountainous region which encapsulates sections of the Great Wall. Further on, when we were essentially on the edge of nowhere at all, a nasty storm came rolling up. We were sitting in the front row, so were given theatre like views of what was coming on. And it came on slow at first: utter blackness in the distance at 3pm. Suddenly, all was eclipsed with blackness of clouds and burning coal and the wind which was blowing swept over little villages that looked deserted and ruined. I was strongly reminded of scenes from "The Road." It was seriously frightening, looked like the oblivion.
Then once we reached Datong, I discovered it is the worst shithole of the shitholes I've seen in China. Worst shithole city, that is. There was a creepy strangeness about the place. I actually liked it, particularly bc it was the exact place I had once conjured in a dream about living in a run-down industrial city. That crumminess and grittiness felt altogether familiar. Walking through certain sections brought me back to the vivid dream I had once had.
The specialty in Datong was rabbit head. We happened upon a street where the only restaurants lining either side were ones serving severed rabbit heads. Large vats of heads bubbling in five-spice powder (五香粉). Naturally, we tried one.

my dad at age 18

Here in Taipei we went to my dad's high school which he attended for 6 years. We were able to locate an old yr book with his picture...

cool building in xiamen

somewhere btwn baotou and beijing

At the tailend of our Inner Mongolian journey we took a 10 hour bus ride from 包头 to 北京. The bus driver did not stop once, except for briefly on the side of the highway during intense traffic, clogged up between endless trucks transporting loads of coal. During that time I got off to snap this haunting image of a nuclear power plant behind a makeshift cemetery.

everything will be out of order from here on out

With all the blocks put in place for blogging in China, all my entries have been and will be disorderly for an indefinite period of time. The actual order of events goes as follows: Shanghai to meet with Alexei, a spell in Xiamen, then Beijing to Datong (Shanxi) to Hohhot (Inner Mongolia) to Xilinhot to Baotou and back to Beijing, then a few days in Xiamen and then now I am in Taiwan. All my vignettes will be out of order. Some pics are mine, most are Shawna's. We go!

inner mongolia

内蒙古, picture taken with Shawna's camera...

downtime in Xiamen, rewind to Shanghai

That's not to say we are feeling 闷闷不乐, quite the contrary in fact. It's been a constant slot machine game with the weather: hot, muggy, cool, rainy, cloudy, sunny, windy, perfect. 老爷's mango dessert shop opened up in the quaint back alley near Xiamen University, its logo which I conceptualized and Shawna designed showing in all its glory. There have been hookah sessions, a private beach party, drinking games at home, chat roulette, coffee sessions, and a modeling photo shoot in an abandoned shoe factory for which I was "prop manager."
Now a quick rewind: Shanghai. Better than I expected since I let my expectations down. Jan's parents took good care of us and made sure we were well-nourished. One rainy night we went out on the town with my party-member friend Henry who works for Ernst & Young as an accountant. We had met in Nanjing in '08. We went clubbing and then continued the event back at Henry's cramped and crowded room until the birds were chirping in the morning, after which we slept in all the strangest contortions to fit in one room.
As for the World Expo, it took a day to recover in between, but we got our energy back for the 3-hour line to the Japanese pavilion. After that, lines weren't so bad and we fit in a number of other pavilions before the day was over. Of note was the old man with the pork buns tail-gating me, breathing down my neck in the Japan line. There is a photo-sequence which Shawna took that plays it out in a comical way and I will post these soon enough...

The China Pavilion

5 years

2005. 2010. Shanghai's Pudong skyscape has changed... have Alexei and I?

Alexei and me on The Bund circa 2005:



...and in 2010:

World Expo (UAE and Spain)

World Expo (UK Pavilion- the seed)

英国

World Expo (Denmark Pavilion)

丹麦:

censorship

At last my hard-drive collapsed and I took the least expensive route out by replacing it. As a result, I am now operating in a Chinese version of Windows (Vista?) which at times can be a royal pain in the ass. Perhaps I lost some photos and some writings, but I'll find some person who can extract those when I go back to the States. I'm back to square one looking for ways to avoid all the blocks China has put in place so that I cannot express myself on this blog. There really is too much to catch up on, and a lot of photos to accompany those stories. In due time, I think I'll be able to get back up to speed.
While on the subject of China's censorship though, I will tell the story of when Shawna and I went to see "Iron Man 2" in theatres here. The villain is portrayed by Mickey Rourke as a Russian; the word "Russia" and "Russian" are used throughout the movie, but every time they are, the words are twisted into an incomprehensible mess. I'm still trying to figure out why the government doesn't want the Chinese people to hear those words? Another fun and interesting thing to do: type in any word with the slightest of pornographic associations in Google search and watch with wonder when it tells you that your search didn't come up with any findings... now imagine if you did that elsewhere and the treasure chest of sites which would come up at your disposal.

these dayz

Pretty low-key times leading up to Alexei's arrival, but once he's here, things will pick up, and travel adventures will be stirred up again. I've been conjuring up tentative plans, we will see which ones pan out. The routine has been a mixture of guzheng lessons and practice, calligraphy lessons and practice, late-nite cheap eats, self-studying the mandarin when i learn new vocab and such, and tutoring English to a friendly Taiwanese businessman. Guzheng is fun, but difficult for me since I've had no previous experience with stringed instruments. Calligraphy is also very challenging, although it is a relaxing activity.
所以呢 Shanghai in just a few days, very excited to see Alexei. The World Expo is going to be something else. If you haven't read much about it, just Google it. In particular I want to see the British and Japanese pavilions. With a one-day ticket, we shall see just how much we are able to squeeze in... As for the other days, guess I'll just have to give Shanghai another chance. Truth is, I never liked the place. I've thought Shanghainese are the nastiest of all Chinese people. Furthermore it is expensive and ritzy. But you know I remember reading an interesting perspective about Bangkok. Some people say Bangkok isn't at all a good representation of Thailand. Then I read another opinion about how really Bangkok with all its filth and prostitution is really not an exception, but the rule- it grew of its own accord from that very soil. Thus I will think of Shanghai as just another piece of diverse China, the natural conclusion of all the events that lead it to be what it is today.
But I have digressed. Here is a watercolor Shawna painted of me as The Joker, based on my passport photo and a conglomeration of deep pimple swelling on the edge of my mouth which arose out of nowhere:

大深海鱼粥 such a good meal

I don't think there is another place quite like Jinmen. That is why when I left there, in the back of my mind was a longing for the place much like feeling a longing for a person.



it was nice to swim in the ocean again...

Last night was the big expat beach party which we attended with our Taiwanese friends. Didn't stray too far into the hordes of Americans, Africans, and Europeans that were there, but the large number of people lent a nice atmosphere. As ironic as it is, I don't care much for expats. The beach party was fun though and we left well after 3am. Before calling it a night, we made a stop at a restaurant for the most delicious sea bass porridge and cooked fish heads. It was a meal like no other. You can see from the picture that the beach party was harder on some than others...
from left to right: mavis, her coworker who passed out, lydia, victor, and shawna

my first step in Taiwan... 金门

It's hard to believe I'm only 2km away from mainland China, yet I am in Taiwan. And this place feels very different. It is very charming in an old school sort of way. It is neither developed nor undeveloped. Not much tackiness to speak of. The only hint of globalization is the 7-11 stores found commonly throughout the island, but even those seem to fit well with the atmosphere. Blue skies, hardly any traffic, few buildings taller than 3 stories, and clean. Even poorer people don't look as miserable.
I arrived here via a large ferry boat, took a bus to the closest town and found it as I said earlier: charming. I got a bike and took off toward the beach and when I got there, not a soul was around. Just an abandoned tank and military gunning post. Indeed this island was the site of many a ferocious battle between Communists and Nationalists back in the day. Now it is a Taiwanese military island with high-security bases all over and warnings of landmines. Still, it is very peaceful. The beach was clean and the waters warm, so I went for a good swim in the ocean and continued along on my bike journey through deserted roads. Other than that, the story has been stopping off for food and the like and discovering that people here are very friendly. All in all, I very much like this place...

some comic relief...

This is the funniest shit ever:

http://failblog.org/2010/04/16/epic-fail-video-interviewee-fail/

never a starfruitless day

When I was little a special treat was starfruit. I've always liked it and sometimes have gone years without eating one. Here in Xiamen, they are everywhere- delicious ones. Now, barely a day goes by without eating one!

photoshoot

sandbags et al.



another building marked (折) for destruction:



a la "the ring":

train station maxim

Sometimes if you snake your way through the crowds outside the train station, you’ll generate enough energy to keep yourself going without a meal.

鼓浪屿

The Offering

A messy flop of hair on his head arranged in some ridiculous fashion which in no way would be accepted by the majority of a western public, the man from Hangzhou balanced an unlit cigarette between two crooked, rotting teeth. He was with two women and he was wearing a questionable outfit. Once the small talk was well underway the cards were all thrown down on the table and the man ambled up to me from his perch like some contorted circus act with an expression of the same sort of psychotic movement. And into my direction extended his arm until his hand was an inch from my face, the cigarette between his fingers but a centimeter. It was an offering of mutual understanding as if to say: “You’re alright and I’m alright. Let’s smoke.”

a note about the spring rolls

Xiamen-type spring rolls are delicious. I had them for the first time at Shawna's second cousin's (her dad's cousin) house for lunch about a month ago. Within the roll you place a spoonful of crushed peanut, a spoonful of dried, shredded seaweed, and some cilantro. Then you pack in a mixture of cooked vegetables, pork, and oysters.
I've noticed that cilantro is a key ingredient in a lot of foods in this region, which comes as a welcome surprise. I've never had cilantro in Chinese food prior to coming here.
Another thing I've seen here is a half-sphere gelatinous substance containing parasite-like worms. Don't want to eat that just yet... like the barbecued rat on a stick I saw in Guangxi.

Respite from the City

There came two days of sunshine and nice breezes so I took full advantage by going to the Xiamen Botanical Garden on the first day and Gulangyu 鼓浪屿(Xiamen's smaller pedestrianized island) on the second day.
The Botanical Garden was enormous and beautiful. With over 6000 different species of plants, I meandered through varying trails that lead me up and down hilly terrain through an awesome cactus garden, bamboo area and many a rock to sunbathe and catch awesome views of the rest of the park. Unlike public parks, there is a small entry fee which detracts a lot of people, so this is a good place to escape the crowds. After multiple of experiences of summiting small mountains (big hills to be more accurate) in China and being met at the top by some youths blasting their shitty, atrocious Chinese pop music via cell-phone/mp3 player, it is a relief to reach the top of anything and hear birds and bamboo rustling instead.
As for Gulangyu, you cannot beat the crowds, at least not at first. A free ferry takes you there in cattle-transport fashion and then releases the gates and hundreds of domestic tourists and speckles of international ones spew out onto the island. In spite of the crowds, it is easy to lose them in the winding cobblestone alleys that weave through crumbling ruins of colonial buildings and old banyan trees. The architecture is really cool. A lot of the fun is simply to wander around, walk along the beach, see people living their quiet lives on the island, and passing the time at cozy cafes. Another priceless aspect of this place: you are not met at every turn with the blaring and obnoxious squeal of motor bikes. There are no other vehicles save for the occasional tour cart. On the island there is also a bird sanctuary, which I'll save for next time. The pricey attractions on the island can be avoided without detracting much from the experience (I think).

portrait of a memory

Julian and I are sitting side by side in folding chairs at a basement burlesque show in Seattle. We are passing back and forth a wine-sized bottle of wine-strength beer called "Gulden Draak."

our climbing will continue... somewhat

We found a bouldering gym "抱石官" here in Xiamen which is open three nights a week. It is really just a small room tucked away in a random building with hand/foot holds placed all over the walls which have been fashioned in varying angles. I do like it however bc it has fulfilled my boyhood dream of creating a bouldering wall in my bedroom. My mum probably remembers when I bought some hand/foot holds from REI in hopes of putting something like that together in my room (for a period of time in middle school my bedroom was a roller-blading rink and a miniature-sized miniature golf course -- now it is a teenager's years of angst-ridden self-expression crystallized into a sort of art gallery). Anyway, 那个时候 the bouldering/climbing wall did not work out due to insufficient stud supports behind my walls.
So now there's this quaint one-room bouldering gym which I'll try to take to a few times a week and get to know the guys who rent out the space, of which they seem to be desperately trying to hold on to (apparently their other place closed down).

我们第一次见面的情况很偶然: The Cool Cats from Beijing

Our meeting with the musicians from Beijing was quite serendipitous indeed. We met in a field in the middle of nowhere looking for the same 600 year old bridge. We went on ahead on our tandem bike, got lost a few more times and eventually made it to the bridge. A little while later those other guys appeared. These looked like people I wanted to know- just one of those feelings- so we further broke the ice with small talk and the like and were invited by them to meet later for some drinks.
later then in the evening we met with them and hung out a bit and were further invited to go rock-climbing the following day. So the next day we went climbing on one of the limestone peaks, which was awesome. We took a van out to a rural elementary school and from there hiked in to the spot. With us were their other friends who are experienced climbers and guides. The climbing was awesome. I want to continue with it if we can find some sort of club in Xiamen.
The next couple days and nights we spent with these guys. Let me introduce them: Yangtao is a director of documentaries and music videos and has even directed a few lesser known movies. Dong Gege is a classical music conductor and composer and also owns a restuarant/bar/hotel in Yangshuo. He only shows up there 2 weeks out of the year to check up on things and the rest of the time just chills in Beijing working on his musical career. Juno is a composer for television and movie soundtracks. His wife JiaJia is a pianist and composer.
They were all a very warm and welcoming toward us from the get-go. I felt comfortable hanging out with them nearly instantly and after just a day it felt like I had known them for longer. We'd stroll into the bar bearing fruit and Yangtao and JiaJia would be playing an intense game of goh. A Chinese translation of Shel Silverstein's poetry lay on the table beside them. Juno and Dong Ge would be playing pool and listening to The Beatles or some old school jazz. They were a creative, thinking, playful group of friends which I found very inspiring. It's not too often that I meet people I click with well in such a short time.
On the day of our departure from Yangshuo, a rainy one, we sat in the bar with Yangtao. The others had either departed or were still sleeping from the late night before. We chit-chatted until it was time to go. As Shawna and I left I looked at Yangtao like the boy in "Where the Wild Things Are" (the movie) does toward his favorite Wild Thing as he sails away in a boat to the real world. Shawna helped me come to this analogy and we both thought it fitting, additionally bc Yangtao is like a gentle giant quite resembling "Carol" from that movie. I will miss those guys...
... and it wasn't until we got back to Xiamen that we looked them up on the internet and found that at least a couple of them are actually somewhat renowned and well-positioned in the music entertainment industry.

on the way to the peak:



me on the wall:



shawna on the wall:



L to R - Xiao Chen, Yang Tao, Juno:



Dong Gege and Yang Tao:



The Gang 1:



The Gang 2 (Dong Ge, Yang Tao, Juno and Me, Shawna and Jia Jia:

阳朔图片

aforementioned water buffalo in a pit of water beside the road:



the li river (漓江):



one of the paths we biked on:



more greatness:



the pictures are endless. since shawna has a nice camera, i've posted these pics that she took.

吃饭 part 2

In one of Hubei's dialects, "to eat food" is spoken as something like "qi3 fan2"
In the Lanzhou dialect of Gansu Province 甘肃省 it is "zash2"

to be continued...

广西 tandem bike journeys

In just a few short days, Guangxi has become one of my favorite places of travel in China so far. We took a raft from Guilin to Yangshuo down the Li River (漓江)some days ago and have stayed here ever since. The town is touristy, especially along the main pedestrian West Street. But in spite of that, I think this place is well worth seeing.
We spent two days tandem biking around the countryside. On the first day we took a cave tour within which we took a mud bath and went to some hot springs. We also climbed up a small mountain for wonderful views of the otherworldly limestone peaks which shoot up and down like the beeps on a heart monitor. Apparently there are some 70000 of them in this area. We met some local ruralites, including a guy of the Zhuang minority who told us of old traditions of his culture and then made us some food. The countryside is teeming with strawberry fields, rice fields and orange orchards, graveyards exploding with firecrackers to ward away evil, and water buffalos everywhere.
The second day of tandem biking was an even longer and more convoluted journey through the farms and dirt poor villages where we got lost a handful of times on the way to a 600-year old bridge. Along the way we met a small group of people from Beijing who were also lost (more to come about them). The scenery was fantastic and the weather optimal. We biked and biked through dirt paths in the farms and pathed roads and finally reached the bridge. On the way back to Yangshuo we took a much more direct route by hooking up with a major road, passing wastelands of towns and being passed by massive trucks overloaded with stock, motorcycles, and other vehicles of the Mad Max post-apocalypse.

吃饭

Of course the Mandarin way to say "eat food" is "chi1 fan4."
The Zhuang (壮) minority people who are prevalent in Guangxi say something like "gen4 niao4." People from Changsha, the capital of Hunan, say "chou3 fan3."
**The more you know**

长青路 the long green road

It wasn’t until I was standing at the midpoint of a pedestrian bridge over a wide boulevard in the rain that I was brought to peace. The road went off somewhere in the future and disappeared. It may have crossed over a part of the sea, but all I could see in the distance was a haze. The sky was very dark for 3pm. The streets in the area were lined with full trees which contributed to the effect of darkness. In the rain, the weathered billboards and advertisements showed their age. A dirty lake attached to a small and sleepy park laid a mild stench about the area and groundskeepers rowed old, narrow boats up the canal to pick garbage from the green waters.

what about the night

Last night was interesting. It began when we met with Nestor Sulu and his wife Queena for dinner. Nestor is an expat from Mexico, of Mayan descent, who owns a web-design company here in Xiamen. Shawna will likely be doing some wok for him remotely and in-office. Nestor's wife is a native of Fujian; they communicate in English and are going to raise their now one year-old daughter to be trilingual in the 3 most widely spoken languages in the world. They are definitely an interesting couple and very well-connected to the expats of Xiamen. They took us to an authentic Italian restaurant run by a delightfully rotund Italian native where we had pasta and pizza. More foreigners than I have seen since being here were packed in the small restaurant. Afterward we strolled around another bar area where Nestor continuously ran into other people he knew, including a Colombian who opened a Mexican joint here. Looks like Alexei will have someone to continue speaking Spanish with when he gets here...
Afterward we met again with the same group of Taiwanese kids at a local over-priced bar where collectively as a group we went through several bottles of Chivas Regal and danced to a random assortment of songs.
The weather has been overcast as of late, but the temperature is not too bad. I'm hoping to go to Xiamen's satellite island 鼓浪屿 Gulangyu this week, as it is the number one tourist aspect of this place and we haven't even been yet. Tomorrow I am meeting with people from a music school to discuss their development of an English class which I might teach. Basically the place specializes in instrument lessons, but they want to teach English too. May be a flop, may not be. At any rate, time will tell.

additional photos

1. another taken by shawna, same place. i haven't had the black chicken in other parts of china, though it is pretty popular here. i had it in a delicious tea/soup concoction that consisted of chicken broth, tea leaves, black chicken pieces, and some medicinal roots and herbs.



2. fire-cupping at an eastern medicine clinic... was very intense as you can see



3. shawna's dad's family in fuzhou. in the back row are her 3rd aunt, two cousins and 2nd uncle and aunt. in the front is her 3rd uncle, mom and grandparents. sadly, her grandmother is in the later stages of parkinson's disease

on the beach

one of xiamen's not-too-bad beaches

Xiamen Meat Market

This is from a morning market about 10-15 minute walk from our apartment. It's got every kind of seafood you never knew existed for sale. A picture tells a thousand words. Shawna took this picture of a guy perfunctorily gutting live eels on a nail in a board of wood.

picture not taken in china

Yori and Jules and I on the last day in Seattle at the end of February 2010

闽菜 is mean 菜

these shells were about size of my hand

福州 pictures

banyan tree

on the street

3.5 days in 福州

Fuzhou for me was like the after effect of strong coffee: existential, anxious, and feeling a persistant tightness in the intestines. You'd think a place nicknamed the city of banyans （蓉城）would have more to offer than countless shopping streets and high rises, but alas it does not. While the banyans are pretty and there is a fun night-market all along the outskirts of Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou is a filthy, prosperous (as its name suggests) city with terrible traffic jams. Not to mention, it was really cold for the 3 days we were there and I was unprepared for that, having come from more warm and humid places.
Meeting Shawna's dad's side of the family was also a lot of fun. More delicious meals were had and more merriment over expensive baijiu.

Sanming: Day 2

Our second day in Sanming has been interesting indeed. We took a walk in a public park with Shawna's grandpa and he told tales of his personal history during the Cultural Revolution. We walked up a small hill from which we could see the entire town of Sanming and the factories in the distance coughing out smoke and contributing generously to the haze over the valley. Afterwards we had another big dinner outing with Shawna's mom and her mom's old college friend. The guy looked like a cross between Mao Ze Dong and the villain from "Story of Ricky." You'd imagine the head of the computer science dept at a local university to be a bit of a square, but this guy was a wealthy mob-boss-looking guy with a greasy comb-over and bad teeth. He brought along an equally mafia-involved-looking friend who had a cinematic scar over his eye and we ate a bunch and drank a bunch. It was hard to imagine Shawna's mom having a friend so different from her. Afterward we had tea at "The Boss" house and met the guy's son who is a grad student. The son took us to the one and only bar and hot spot in this small town to drink light beer and play dice games. He even went so far as to hire a girl to play dice games with us and to generally be present.